Quickly in response to Mr. Ulyanov, I was giving a hypothetical situation were the shoe is on the other foot. Say the Israelis are Palestinians and Palestinians are Israelis, or better yet do you the think the government should intervene in Palestine now, for the Palestinians?
No, I think they should stop intervening and supporting it. Israel wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for foreign government intervention, and I don’t think it could continue its ethnic cleansing without its current support.
There is nothing I like about Romney/Santorum.
On #1 for Romney, he wants more inflation (complaining about China having a weaker currency than the America), he wants more tariffs on China made goods, he wants to cut out loopholes and deductions, so he’ll actually be raising taxes by quite a bit. He also says nothing about reducing the bottom marginal rate. For all we know he could raise it to 15% in the name of “fairness”.
On #3 for Romney, he wants more treaties for trade, which means he doesn’t want to repeal our own trade regulations.
For Santorum #1 and 4, as John James pointed out, he voted for all of Bush’s big spending policies and he wants to raise military spending since he wants to strike Iran. He’s referring to spending less than originally planned anyway rather than spending $1T less than Obama would for FY2013. Unlike Dr. Paul, he never proposed a budget outlining what he’s going to cut and how he’s going to cut. Santorum would increase spending, but pretending that he was going to cut $5T over the first 5 years, he means something like the equivalent of $200B from this FY’s budget which is a spending reduction of less than 7%.
I’d much rather have Santorum than Romney. Please god let that happen.
Even though it will likely mean next to nothing. If nothing else, no more Obama, please.
No positive change can come from politics as it stands now, barring a libertarian sea-change in the GOP which won’t likely happen. What can happen is a lessening of the pace of destruction, to buy us some time to establish a new ocean-based society 
Santorum would lose to Obama. As bad as he’s been, all Obama would have to do is pluck the war strings and the gay strings and it’s a landslide. And just for good measure I’d be willing to put money on the Dems finding some race strings to pluck too. Santorum gets no Democrat vote. No Independent vote. Don’t forget, for all his talk about being able to win tough elections in Democrat areas and crap…remember he’s “former” Senator Rick Santorum for a reason. And it ain’t cuz he decided to retire.
Landslide. Guarantee it.
I like your answer No2statism. I’m glad you touched on free trade. Romney could argue that Americans are losing their jobs because China is inflating their currency, but I’m sure we all know were that arguement is going, so I won’t even try arguing Romney’s point on that.
It look like what I have that is irrefutable evidence thus far is;
Romney
Santorum
As far foriegn policy I could argue that scaling down bases could lead to more interventionist actions (even though I don’t believe that), but can anyone come up with a good reason to attack Iran? Also I would greatly appreciate if anyone can add to my list againist Romney and Santorum.
I disagree. You are entitled to compensation, not reciprocal action. Say I live in a shack and, for fun, a wealthy man comes and burns my place down. Am I entitled to go to his mansion and burn it to the ground?
Yes. Proportionate enough, since he also wasted your time. (Remember, we’re not talking equivalence here).
Hey, look what I found…
P.S.
I guess this means I’m not going to get any response to any of the points I’ve made for you?
Romney and Santorum are both bloodthirsty warmongers and that’s enough for me to ignore every single position they hold on other types of policies.
Thank you for the article Mr. James. I’m sorry I have been too busy to be active in the forum, but I’m writing an anti Romeny script now. When I’m finished I would love to resume our converstation.
Don’t overlook my suggestions and critique for you
If an arsonist burns your house down, they must reciprocate the value of your home and belongings lost as well as your lost productivity. You are not granted the right to become an arsonist yourself.
This made me lol
Glad to see we agree on proportionate punishment Wheylous.
James/Wheylous, any comments on the hypothetical I posed about State military intervention?
Anyway, CSL, if I may use that, we are what is called “anarcho-capitalists.”
The pillars of the doctrine are
Property rights - private and individual
Contract rights - voluntary agreements for title transfers may be enforced
Self-ownership - you and only you have the power to physically control your body
Non-Aggression Principle (NAP) - it is illegitimate to physically aggress against the property and person of another.
All of these are sort of variants of the first (property rights), upon analysis. Indeed, “property” is best defined as the right to exclusive control over a scarce resource. Having a “right” to something means that you may legitimately use power to protect against aggression of that thing.
Thus, any idea you bring forth will be analyzed through this lens. The right is to property and the modus operandi of society is the NAP. Nothing that violates the NAP should be institutionalized.
Taking this view and applying it to politics, we see that the federal government provides almost all of its services illegitimately because they are paid for through taxation. Taxation is the forceful expropriation of the property of one individual by another group - ie, theft. If you do not allow them to take your property you are threatened with force and if you resist further you are taken to prison - ie, kidnapped - while your property is stolen.
Taking this down to the state level, we do not believe that states should provide services “at the barrel of a gun” either. They are no different in nature from the federal government - just on a smaller scale. Indeed, some states are as big as some countries. Some much bigger.
The same is applied to the local level.
The question then becomes “What about the services the state provides us?” The answer is that they are now provided by voluntary association in the market - ie individuals who produce goods and services. One of the key differences between the state and the market is that market players gain money by selling useful products to the public while the state must expropriate (ie, steal).
What about regulations? Supply and demand take care of those as well as voluntary association. History actually shows us that regulations were actively pushed for by big business to drive out smaller businesses.
Antitrust? Evil monopolies have never occurred on the free market.
Unemployment? The biggest redistributor of wealth from the poor to the wealthy is the Federal Reserve system because the money it creates is non-neutral for the people to whom it gives it first - big banks and big businesses. They can take advantage of the higher value of money before the inflated supply drives up the price of everything. Furthermore, the Fed causes the business cycle, as explained by the Austrian Business Cycle Theory, which hurts the unemployed the hardest. The unemployed are also hurt by child labor laws (lack of experience as teenagers), unemployment (literally makes it illegal for you to voluntarily give your services to someone else under a certain government-approved wage), and the land monopoly (the government is the de facto owner of all unused land in the US, which hurts those without land for obvious reasons).
Police force? This can be provided by private defense agencies. And no, the warlords would not take over. These agencies have to compete for customers (as opposed to the US government, which currently steals 40% of the GDP of the public) and are prone to supply and demand.
National defense? Again, private armies likely drilled during peacetime and ready for war. If there is a belief that the country will be attacked then the public will certainly want protection. Funds can be collected during peacetime to use during wartime. Private defense agencies can work together in times of war. In general, the market will figure it out. It is certainly obvious that the US army is currently deeply 1) overextended 2) spending more money than it needs to. Remember, too, that if you don’t go out and make enemies but trade peacefully with those who are also peaceful you will be making less enemies. Furthermore, without government taxation and spending much more productivity will be unlocked by the private sector with all the crowding out by government being gone. Add in also the productivity-destructive regulations by the government and we’re looking at a higher rate of production in the country with lower waste in the army - hence, a wealthier country spending needing to spend less on armies.
Utility services? Nope, those are actually government-created monopolies which used to be competitive.
The court system? Ah we get to the tougher part, yet this again will be privately provided. There is the possibility that a lot more mutually-agreed arbitration and court insurance companies will be used. Read Chaos Theory by Murphy.
What, you mean no laws? Not at all. The law of the land is the NAP, which is enforced by the court system.
Now take this knowledge and analyze Romney and Santorum. I think you’d see why we do not support either.
That being said, many libertarians are fine with using the rhetoric of the Constitution to shrink the federal government. We can point out that if you want the rule of law, at least follow the Constitution and give up the power and leave it up to the states. This doesn’t mean we approve of state power, but we at least cut off the head of the federal beast. We can then turn our sight onto the state beasts.
Just remember - big business is often not a friend of libertarians. The history of government-business collusion is ample and conclusive. The Gilded Age was not domineered by evil free market companies. The GD was not ended by Roosevelt, Keynes, or WW2. Reagan was not a conservative (raised taxes) and Hoover was not laissez-faire (began the policies that FDR would continue). The Industrial Revolution was one of the best things to happen to mankind ever by bringing productivity and output way up to crush the poverty of subsistence agriculture. The specialization of labor allows for better company structure, management, and production. All value is subjective and the only “fair” trade is one mutually agreed upon. The government cannot plan the economy because of the calculation problem that plagues socialism. You have to always look not only what is seen but also, as Bastiat would say, at what is not seen. Mind the law of unintended consequences, moral hazard, and the pretense of knowledge. Coercion is never acceptable. Life, liberty, and property. I’m out.
Well, RD, I do not believe in punishment. I believe in restitution. I used to believe in eye for an eye, but the purpose of the justice system is to restore matters to what they were before, not to reciprocate what has been done to you.
Oh, sorry for making assumptions mate. I thought you were laughing because he was wrong. >_>
If a State military hypothetically kills a murderer, is that immoral by Libertarian theory? I understand that the military and government are illegitimate in themselves, but does that per se make any of their actions illegitimate?
No it’s not, obviously not. You need methodological individualism. Just because he’s an actor of the state doesn’t mean he’s aggressing. We dislike the state not because it is the state but because it aggresses. If some actions of an agent of the state are within the boundaries of AnCap, then those actions are fine (of course, you need to be extra careful to make sure those actions are not backed by the threat of coercion against peaceful individuals). In this case, a police man may justly kill a murder who is threatening a peaceful individual with death in the near to medium-near future. Don’t be blinded by the state. Look at the actions and their relation to the NAP.
Oh, sorry for making assumptions mate. I thought you were laughing because he was wrong. >_>
Oh, no. I definitely think he’s right. Proportionality doesn’t fix matters. It just satisfies some artificially-created vengeance which was not there before the act. What you need to do is try to get as close as possible to how things were before the breaking of the NAP.
I was laughing the semi-reductio he made
I agree Wheylous, that’s exactly what I thought. It’s just that, in response to whether State intervention is ever legitimate, John said:
Technically never, because a State military is illegitimate.
I thought that was false, hence my question.